The Pursuit Of Consistency In Trading | At the Table by Urban Forex Ep.006
[Navin] All right good morning everybody good evening good afternoon. Welcome to another episode of At The Table with Urban Forex and today we have a very special episode where we're going to be talking about consistency. What is consistency? What does it mean to you? Why is it important? How do we accomplish it? Now following this podcast regarding consistency, we also have a webinar that we're going to be doing right after this podcast. We're going to be
all the people who are listening in live will be able to attend the webinar as well. We're going to be going over some tips and tricks on how to achieve that consistency based on all of our years of experience combined on trying to conquer that word. So hi, for those of you guys who do not know me my name is Navin Prithyani, I am the senior trader at www.urbanforex.com and mentor and head coach here. Along with me I have here Ian, Lucas and Armand. [Ian] Hello everybody. [N] Hello hello. [Lucas] yeah. [Armand] yeah yeah. [Ian] I'm saying hello to everyone.
[N] All right let's start off this conversation with what does consistency mean to you and what are some of the things in the years you have been trading and been around traders what have you noticed as a pitfalls of trading and what are the some of the ways you've seen them overcome it if they've overcome it ? [A] That's like four questions at once right? [N] yeah yeah so you can attack whichever one you want. [A] So I'll start with the first one 'what is consistency to me'. It's it's the ability to repeat something in the same in a systematic way and get similar results. Basically knowing what you're doing, how you're doing it and be being able to do it again. I think that's the best summary I can give to it. The other question was is 'what
are some of the pitfalls I've seen other people make in terms of consistency?' I think what is very common is that people not everyone does this but many people do this they ask for 'Hey just show me how you enter a trade show me your entries and you know I've done the education if you just show me your entries I know what to do. But then the pitfall is that they focus only on the entry and they don't really focus so much on everything that comes before that or prior to that and then they build their whole system, because they're still looking for consistency, they build the whole system just around the entry but not around everything that comes before that. And you know every trade is unique and if you only focus on the entry you forget all the uniqueness about the trade you're just trying to you know look for a pattern almost.
[N] Absolutely. [A] I don't want to curse anywhere but it's impossible to find consistency because you know what is a good entry on one trade is a shitty entry on another one, sorry for cursing but um yeah it's impossible to find consistency like that. That's I think the most common one. [L] I think to go back to your your initial answer about what consistency means to you. Correct me if I'm wrong you were saying, having a system where they are doing like consistent stuff basically knowing what they're doing consistently. I
think that's something you were saying. I think a lot, I think one of the other pitfalls that most, I wouldn't say just newer traders even like intermediate traders, it's the fact that you know they are not too sure what they are trying to accomplish they're not too sure what their their ideal trade should look like so that kind of blur things out for them that's why you know some trades are not consistent because of the blur lines. I think. [A] Yeah it's like not having a proper edge or not being aware of what is your edge, I guess. [N] Like so many times we see that right where a lot of people are coming into the market and their mentality is, at least my mentality right, I'll tell you how when I was starting my whole mentality was consistently getting an income I wasn't even aware of consistently trading that was a myth to me. For me it was like well can i just make money like whichever way and shape or form that was fine can I just make it regularly because I was leaving a pay-check that was coming in regularly. So I am used to that mindset of something coming in regularly no matter what. So when I went to the market, ([Ian] I agree with that.)
[N] expecting the same thing, that caused a little bit of problem and i didn't know that it was such a big thing at that time and i could never achieve consistency for a very very long time. I'm going from system one strategy, one signal service one, coach number one. You know and then down to number two number three number four and number five [L] Yeah I think I have like a similar story behind my story of consistency and how I approached it incorrectly. In the beginning when I was looking into trading, consistency is always the word that's always showing up you've got to be consistent with your trades. So in my mind I was interpreting it incorrectly, in my mind I was thinking 'All right so I have to look for consistent trades which means all my trades should be more or less looking the same'. Which also means i'm basically looking for patterns on the market. And yeah for the
longest time I was just doing that and wow I can't tell you how many headaches I had with that. I think Ian has it. [Ian] Yeah actually it's funny you brought up like patterns and stuff like honestly when I first started well I think this is actually true for a lot of traders starting out is we're always looking for that easy the easiest road to success and I think especially when in the trading world I think the two most common words that most people use are 'indicators' and 'patterns' like you just said. And I know from my experience that's where I started. I researched any kind of indicator 'okay this one for sure will tell me where to get in and where to get out and and I'm going to get consistent with that '. And honestly there were maybe even days and weeks in a row that it did work and I was like 'Oh man i got it all figured out now like. [L] yeah it's
like a full proof pen. [Ian] yeah exactly i'm like this is super easy why isn't everybody doing this and leaving their job and doing this but then all of a sudden the next week i'd be doing the same thing and all of a sudden my consistency just took a nosedive. Almost then my consistency was I was consistently wrong so i guess if you can kind of look at it that way i was consistently right and consistently wrong and then but overall i didn't have any kind of consistency. And
yeah over time I kind of realized that these patterns stuff may work but you also have to know the story behind the chart and then and how to read it properly so that those indicators and patterns will actually work on a consistent basis. [N] So well actually get this if it helps, I'm 19 okay I'm 19 working for BB&T bank, living in the USA, I'm getting paid a salary of 50 000 plus commissions and everything like that and your cell phone paid car mileage paid. So I'm working for a bank at the age of 19 earning 50 plus k a year. My trading starts to kick off, I quit my job. This is the road, I quit my job, within the first week I'm like 'Whoa this look at this i'm doing great i can do this all day! You know what where's the boss's office let me talk to him get bring him to me'. That was my journey I personally took and you know later to find out the hard way that 'uh oh I shouldn't have quit my job, like I should have kept that job'. And I was forced into 'okay you better make this work now you better trade well'. And that answer didn't come for years and years and years
and I didn't even know consistency was a thing I just kept thinking I must have the wrong strategy, I must have the wrong strategy, I must have the wrong strategy, oh the market has different cycles? Oh I must be in the wrong market cycle, I must be in the wrong market cycle, oh it's my psychology? apparently I need to be an expert in phd and in psychology and i need to be one with the world and the universe, okay so it's the psychology, it's the psychology, oh I have access to information that the big boys do not share? Oh so I'm in a market that is that is rigged. So I'm going through that phase now so i've gone through multiple phases of 'I don't know how to answer this problem of how to become a trader' because everything that's coming at me with my own experience and plus people screaming at me saying you know trading is gambling you have to be careful. You know I don't know why you quit your job you had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity working for a bank anyone would have killed for that position but you had it. And i'm sitting there i'm like yeah no now that you said I understand now, but at that time when I had one week were you oh man there's no way I would listen to him. [Ian] Where were you back then?
So at that time when I made those profits for that one week or week and a half of like I got this, I got this I'm ready to rock and roll you know um but yeah so consistency definitely creeps up on you very very quickly. [Ian] Yeah yeah you actually brought up something else while you're talking there that actually hit home for me as well. Just the psychology m with being a trader in general. Because even when i found maybe when you actually get that solid trading plan down and you're there's going to be ups and downs of that as well sometimes you'll have weeks where you lose a few trades like, I know I've had days where every single trade I seem to get in that day was just just a loss and your psychology behind that can even get you second guessing yourself and maybe going against the plan that that was providing consistent strategies. So i think getting a good handle on your mindset is important
not only for losses but also for wins. Not getting necessarily too over confident and 'oh I'm gonna grab those few extra pips this time and try and milk this' when you normally would exit and then you lose and then so i don't know if you agree Armand or not but psychology played like a part in your training as well like kind of like for myself. [Armand] Yeah for me too and I actually I also see this in the elite community with with some guys that have like three four five green months in a row and then suddenly they have like two losing weeks and they start to question whether they know how to trade. And then you know one of us has to remind them like 'hey listen
you just had like three four five months in a row that were green that's not a coincidence'. Like you cannot go to a casino and get you know you know and be in that casino every business day and gamble in the casino and then walk away with more money than you came in with. In trading that is possible in the casino that is not possible and that just proves to me that you are not gambling, you know what you're doing you can trade so you know focus on your system focus on what you're doing differently than you were doing before or maybe the market is slightly different and slightly adjust and i think that that is really a big part of psychology to you know not stress or freak out when you just have a few losses over after having such a decent long and profitable run. [Ian] Look at the big picture keep looking at the big picture. [Navin] You know I like how
you bring that up actually because you know what is the difference between a person who who might have a bad patch in his trading versus someone who's let's say not trading he's in a job he does a great job all the time but once in a while he doesn't submit his sales report or his excel file that he's supposed to do what is he not scared then? It's the same thing why is it any different in forex like you should always be on your toes that's a good thing but you shouldn't doubt that you're a bad trader overall if you had a bad patch every once in a while, that's okay you know yeah and it's funny how, um it's surprising not funny, that how people can come up to that psychological conclusion of 'am I doing this right?' And i think that's because the the media around us constantly bombards us with you're not a trader, you're not a trader, you can't be a trader, you can't be a trader. People surrounding you also toot the same horn right? You're not a trader, you can't be a trader over and over. [Lucas] If you don't have a Ferrari in your in your garage and you're definitely not a trader. [N] Yeah I don't get that, I really don't think that because many times I get emails sometimes from people saying so Navin, you're this big trader how many Ferraris do you have? Like what do you mean 'how many'? I don't even have one! I'm not allowed to like the car first and then decide if i want it? yeah but i don't even have this lamborghini you know like but it's so confusing that it's this image of trading = fast car. Who came up with that rule? It's instagram it was a new breed of traders that came up with that rule there is no such thing as good traders equals liabilities, that is the dumbest traders on the planet. If all you're making money and buying liabilities after liabilities after liabilities. Now if the word
liability is a confusion, what does Navin mean when he says liability that guy is not a trader. It's not a matter of well when I generate the cash, I dump it, when I generate the cash, I dump it. Then that person is not good with money to begin with. Therefore if he's not good with
money after he makes a successful trade he's not going to be good with money ever. [Lucas] Actually I agree with that.Like tying this with like the psychology and even Armand was talking about. I believe, like I believe trading consistently doesn't just comes from the trade itself it doesn't just reflects like what you're trading i think consistent trading in a good way you know you have to develop that through your lifestyle your daily habits stuff that's outside the charts. I've read this somewhere before and i agree with this very much, and it was saying it's from this book I can't really remember, but basically it was saying 'We tend to take our personality and we project it on the markets itself on our own trades'.
So someone who's you know inconsistent with their daily habits their daily rituals for the most part you see the same thing on their trades so before looking at the trade or you know the trading itself maybe we got to reflect on how we are as a person outside you know the markets and fix that first then maybe there's higher odds of being consistent at trading i think that's pretty important. [N] absolutely I agree with that absolutely absolutely. [A] Yeah particularly in the in the pre-trade routines that you have maybe not so much after you're done with your trading and you've done your post analysis and everything but the routines and the habits you have prior to trading and you know getting ready to do in your analysis and doing the actual trading itself i think it's really important to you know make your mind and your body switch to to focus mode or it goes beyond trading anything that requires focus you need some sort of small ritual or for some people a bigger ritual to to get ready to get into that zone if you will [Lucas] Yeah I agree with that. [Ian] For myself yeah I try and always do a bit of meditating every day especially like right before i'm gonna look at the charts or just to try and kind of um calm my mind i don't know if you guys do the same thing as far as like try and meditate every day but ([N] Yeah, every day) [Ian] I know it really helps me focus right like just to kind of forget forget the stresses or whatever's going on and just get that clear mind to look at the charts so. [Armand] Yeah i just like to have breakfast. After trading I like to do some some sports but uh yeah before just you know breakfast i but not too much like not feel all drowsy and sleepy again because i ate too much so just uh just a light one. [Navin] Yeah I generally go through a, for myself personally I use a routine in the morning as soon as i wake up because i wake up just uh very close to London opening opening hours so a lot of the times when i wake up i tend to take a moment and reflect on if i had any losing trades that my previous day or that week and just reflect on what did you go in your post analysis what did you say in your post analysis remember that don't forget it you're trying to get better not worse by saying oh let me try it again today you know that's the single greatest flaw a trader can have is he takes a trade he does whatever he sees he thinks he knows he makes a loss he quickly says i made a okay i know why i made a loss and then he brushes it off and he's on to the next opportunity on to the next opportunity wait a minute did you learn anything or are you just saying the next one i might flip the coin the right way the next one i might flip the coin the right way and hopefully i flip the coin enough times that i become a millionaire that's never going to happen. [A] Yeah most most people trade flip that coin so many times their account is gone. [Navin] Because of the fees right they don't even take in the account there's fees
that you have to pay right everyone's like if i make any profits then who cares about the fees that's how banks are made it's it's fees you know you're just keeping the money in the bank and then you withdraw that money so think about it where does the money come from for the bank it's fees it's that little i'm gonna charge you two dollars a month nagging little two dollars a month coming at you all day every day and as a person we're like two dollars is fine as long as i make a million outside somewhere what is two dollars that mentality is what makes uh all these brokerages and big institutions just keep raking in that money slowly and quietly piece by piece because the average person says oh that's not a big deal it's okay and it really racks up really quickly until you know that it's become this giant that's eating away at your account because you have 10 000 trades you know but but to put it all into perspective now if you think consistency what are the some of the breakthroughs you have seen with people that achieve consistency? So Armand, when you when you've dealt with all these students when you dealt with all the people in the Elite Community, you've seen people who are not consistent you've seen people who are consistent and you've seen people who go from not consistent to consistent. What would you say is a common trait of a consistent person? [Armand] Well I think there's a few things that are important. When people are really inconsistent where they just have loss after loss and they have no idea you know why it's happening i think it's it's good to start with some sort of program or lessons that will give you some structure then with that structure the second most important thing is to to do post analysis because then you refine to make that structure work uh or turn it into a system that works for you and another thing that i've seen quite a few people in the Elite Community do is that they become more picky and in which trades they actually take so they go from like sort of a quantity trader to a quality trader or taking quality trades um and then but they're reluctant to do it because it's like if i trade less i i will grow slower but the flip side is if you're more picky in your trades sure you have less trades um but you'll have a higher win percentage and you can do so much more research you know prior to that trade to before you get in and also afterwards you can do so much more post analysis on that and learn so so much more from that trade extract so much more knowledge that you can use on the next one and another positive thing about that is that the moment the win percentage goes up confidence goes up and it becomes a lot easier to you know go with that same system and say okay i i trade less i trade higher quality trades but i'm more confident when i pull the trigger i'm more at peace and then you know they will still go back into a phase where it's sometimes some more losses sometimes some more wins against like basically a range but because they already have a base now that they can build on and if they do their post analysis consistently then they can take that next uh uptrend again it it'll be much easier to build that up trend to you know to build it from that base. [Navin] Right absolutely I want to ask all of you guys this one huh sorry? [A] Was that a good answer? [N] yeah that's good I was looking for what is the commonality and seems like you said uh then doing their post analysis and working on themselves to get to the next level and giving giving themselves a win percentage and confidence right? So that's good and I do see that is a common trait amongst a lot of the traders who are consistent but we've been talking about consistency for the past half an hour. Why consistency? Why is that so important and especially at Urban Forex, why do we take this to heart why is consistency so so important? What does it do? What's the single most important thing that consistency can do for you? [Armand] It enables everyone to you know live the life that they dreamt of to to reach their goals. [Navin] That's that's always there but what is the most important piece? [Armand] Not the correct answer.
but i'm saying what's the most important one? [Ian] I think the consistency i mean without a doubt builds the confidence but that confidence as a trader helps you trade bigger and more that's as you get more experience because that's what like you can that's the goal is to grow the amount you trade all the time because you have the confidence and you have the consistency to back it up and that's what will really grow your account in the long run. [Armand] You have the data. [Navin] Yeah so if you're if you know you're consistent right you're you're at a job for example if you're at a job and you're like okay what's the highest position i can get well CEO well i don't know where i can go from here well that's it end of story i'm done but you've entered the market with this idea of hey but i open my ceiling i open my ceiling i can make as much money as i want why don't you why don't you plan for that why don't we plan for that why don't we work on our consistency so we can trade bigger you see if there are traders out there who just have a win percentage but they're not sizing up there's something wrong with that trader there's something wrong with that mentor. [Ian ] Confidence, it's your confidence if you don't size up that's your confidence. [Ian] There you go. [Ian] In a nutshell because anyone who's if you're 100 confident in what you're doing you will size up because why wouldn't you?[N] Why wouldn't you, exactly! If you know what you're doing why trade small why trade a micro lot that doesn't make any sense why are you wasting your time? If you know by doing it over and over again you size up you size up now it brings us to the next part right which is like okay but what if i don't know what to do? And this is where a lot of traders are in i don't know how to gain that consistency because whatever i'm doing it goes up and down and i don't know if i'm supposed to fix that to make it consistent or i'm supposed to do something else to make that consistent i don't know what journey to take and that's where a lot of traders coming into this market unfortunately are like i don't know what to do and what's happening is they're learning from someone else who also doesn't know what to do so it's like a blind mouse helping another blind mouse saying just follow me i know the way i was like well good luck. [Ian] Yeah you got to surround yourself with people who are better than you to grow
[Navin] Way better than you yeah like you gotta you gotta see numbers you you're like when you see those numbers you're like holy crap i'd like to trade that size i'd like to trade that size how do you get to that confidence level to trade that size and when you look at the chart and you see how the person entered and exit you're like that's it that's all you did like but i can do that again and again and again and with size and this is just today watch me in a month from now it'll be bigger watch me in three months run it'll be bigger that's the name of the game that's what wall street does if you go into any office in wall street what is their main thing? How do you become the top dog in wall street? Who's got the biggest size. Okay I don't mean literally i meant i didn't know. [Ian] i wasn't sure why you're going there [Lucas] Well to be fair you still need big size to treat big size. [Navin] Well there you go you need kahuna to do that right so it's it's it's all about that it's it's all about can you get big can you get huge right now it just sounds wrong now we would that. [Ian] Are we doing
a training podcast or what are we doing here? [Navin] This is turning into some porn podcast now We should we should switch this over to the webinar. [Armand] I thought you guys were talking about food where people just eat so much they become bigger and bigger. [Navin] oh yeah yeah exactly [Ian] Yeah that's what i was talking about yeah. [Navin] That's it
But yeah well that took a turn All right so we got like 500 plus people coming into the room right now and more stepping in by by the second so what we're gonna what we're gonna do now is we're gonna open up this question even more and we're gonna bring it on to our charts okay we're gonna really talk about how can consistency be done if we don't understand some of the foundational pieces of what is trading. How is trading supposed to be done and then i can build consistency without that it's just another arrow you can get as many arrows as you want but you don't know where you're shooting then how are you gonna say this time the shot is gonna hit bullseye you need that same target over and over again to make sure you get better and better hitting at that bullseye but if you have no target and you're just getting another arrow another arrow another arrow well you can be the hardest worker on the planet by getting another arrow another arrow you're never going to hit consistency because you don't know where you're going you don't know where you're going right so having that said so thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of At The Table talking about consistency what we're gonna do is we're gonna take this discussion now into a webinar where i'm gonna share my screen all the links uh regarding this webinar will be shared with this podcast as well if you're if you're tuning in whether it's from Spotify, Apple itunes, am i saying right? Apple podcast oh they're going to definitely take us off if I don't know how to say this on the podcast whichever podcast you're tuning in from um until until the next episode guys thanks thanks you guys here on the panel i'll see you guys on the next one
2021-07-12 14:16
